


once upon a time (a star to steer her by)

by The_Wavesinger



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Bittersweet, F/M, First Meetings, Love at First Sight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-01 01:06:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18325589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Wavesinger/pseuds/The_Wavesinger
Summary: This is the story of how Sally Jackson meets a sea god and falls in love. This is not, however, a fairy-tale.





	once upon a time (a star to steer her by)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [salazarastark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/salazarastark/gifts).



> Title is partly from the John Masefield poem Sea Fever.

There’s a man holding a trident walking along the beach in Montauk.

No-one notices the trident he’s carrying, and oh. It’s one of _those_ things, then. She half-thinks she’s crazy, and inventing all this stuff in her head, except for how sometimes the strange people actually talk to her. (And that one time she’d sheltered a thirteen-year-old from a crazy cheerleader, but she’d rather not think about that, thanks.)

She’s going to ignore him. It’s always best to ignore them.

Except, he walks up to her and smiles, and says, “Hello.”

He’s cute. About fifteen years older than her, by the looks of him, but cute, in a scruffy way. Storm-green eyes, a deep tan, neat black beard, vaguely Mediterranean-looking.

Strike that. He’s not cute, he’s gorgeous. And it’s a weekend in Montauk and after this she’ll probably never see him again, so she smiles back. “Hello.” Then, because she can’t resist, “Do you make a habit of carrying tridents around? Or is it some special occasion today?”

The man blinks. Then says, “I find it’s a good conversation starter.”

Sally laughs. “Well, I wouldn’t—” She eyes the thing, and there’s _so much_ she can say. But it’ll all be flirting, and she hasn’t quite yet decided she wants to go there with him.

The man grins ruefully. “Yes, I know. But it’s also part of the job description.”

“And what job would that be?” Oh please don’t let him be some kind of salesman. That’d be disappointing, to say the least.

“God of the sea. I’m Poseidon,” he adds carelessly. “Nice to meet you.”

“Sally Jackson.” It’s automatic, an absent-minded politeness. Then what he said actually registers. “…you’re pulling my leg. That’s not nice?”

Something fleeting that Sally might call indecision passes over the man’s face. He shakes his head. “What would you do if I told you I wasn’t?”

Then he’s telling her about Greek gods and mythologies moving with Western civilization. It’s ridiculous and nothing a grown woman should take seriously. And yet.

And yet, Sally believes him. God help her (gods help her?) Sally believes him with all her heart.

—

He— _Poseidon, Poseidon god of the sea_ —tells her about monsters and demigods and suddenly her whole life just falls into place. She’s not deluded, she’s not crazy, she hasn’t been seeing things. And maybe she’s crazy for believing this stranger, but it all makes so much _sense_. There’s something called the Mist (and she can hear the capital M in his voice) and she can see through it, apparently. Most mortals ( _mortals_ ) can’t. Demigods and gods and monsters and all the creatures of myth and legend are protected by that Mist.

“And these demigods?” Sally asks. “What happens to them? Do they become gods?”

Poseidon frowns, and when he speaks his voice has a distant quality to it. “Some of them do. Some of them—” He pauses. “You’ve read Greek myths in school, haven’t you, Sally Jackson?”

Not in school she hasn’t (poor public school, and she dropped out, too), but her grandmother told her stories when she was a baby. And oh. _Oh_. All those stories with their terrible tragic endings, and they’re all demigods. Children of gods. (And children of humans too, humans who, like their children, meet tragic ends. And sometimes tragic beginnings.) That’s not a pleasant thought, not with Poseidon sitting right next to her on the sand, his shoulder brushing hers.

But there _is_ the one story she remembers ending well. “Perseus lived happily ever after, though, didn’t he?”

Poseidon smiles, and it’s like the sun on the waves after a storm. “Yes, yes he did.”

—

Somehow, he extracts the promise of a date from her. Dinner at Dave’s Grill, and she dresses up as best as she can even though she doesn’t have much in the way of nice clothes.

It’s uncomfortable. Poseidon is nice, and funny, and generally all-round charming. But she’s not used to this, not used to being taken out to a nice place. The prices make her head spin. Everyone is more underdressed yet somehow better dressed than she is. She feels like Poseidon’s trophy—date. Person. It’s just not where she belongs.

Halfway through their meal, Poseidon sighs. “You’re not enjoying this, are you?”

Sally blushes. He’s taking her out to an amazing place, and she can’t even pretend to enjoy herself. “No, I am.”

But Poseidon signals for the check.

It’s over and done then. He’ll walk her back to her broken-down little rented room and give her a kiss on the cheek and she’ll never see him again. Gods don’t consort with mortals lightly after all. And she knows what she is. Twenty-three years old with no high school diploma, no family and even fewer friends, working at retail stores, and she had to save up for six months, scrimping and pinching, just to afford this vacation. She isn’t a woman who can sweep a god off his feet.

She only realizes that they’re not walking to her room after five minutes on the beach. “Um, Poseidon? Where are we going?”

He takes her hand (and she shivers when he touches her, and the smell of the ocean breeze grows suddenly stronger). “Do you trust me, Sally Jackson?”

She shouldn’t trust him. It’s dark, and going to deserted beaches with strange men never ends well.

“Yes,” she says. “Yes. I trust you.”

—

They end up in a sort of cove, walking barefoot on the sand with waves lapping at their ankles. The moonlight shimmers on the water. They’re far enough from the main tourist area that it’s quiet.

Suddenly, Poseidon draws to a stop.

“What are you?”

He places a finger on her lips. “Shhh. There’s something I want to show you.”

So they wait. And wait. And wait.

It’s been long enough that Sally’s about to speak up, ask to go back, when a streak of something silvery appears on the horizon, grows and grows until—

Sally gasps. It’s a creature that looks something like a horse. Except it’s in the sea, and it has rainbow-silver skin that reflects the moonlight. And as she watches, more and more of them join the first creature, until there’s a shimmering mass of silver light in front of her eyes.

“They’re beautiful,” Sally whispers softly.

Poseidon smiles, one of the deep, ancient smiles she’s already learning to love. “Come on, get on.”

“Do you mean—”

“Yes.”

So she wades out and climbs onto the first of the creatures— _hippocampi_ , some part of her brain supplies—that are waiting for her.

And so it happens that Sally Jackson kisses a sea god under the light of the moon, sitting aside a hippocampus and floating on the waves of a calm, quiet ocean.

—

Poseidon takes her back to her room.

He has a wife, she knows, if the stories are true. Amphitrite, queen beneath the sea. But maybe they’re not true, or maybe—

Maybe.

It doesn’t matter, really. It’s one weekend.

She lets herself into her room, and kisses him on the doorstep. And then they’re holding each other, and their hands and feet and mouth are everywhere, and Sally finally, finally lets go,

—

The next day, he takes her underwater, wrapped in a bubble of air, and they walk within a coral reef, hand-in-hand. It’s a different world, colors and light and movement all blurred, to her human eyes, by the gentle ripples of water and the sunlight peeking through the waves. Fish dart glances at her as they swim past, but Poseidon’s presence here feels at _home_. He’s completely and utterly a god here, surveying his domain.

When they emerge, they walk on the waves, and it’s the most amazing thing Sally’s ever known.

Or the second most amazing thing. That night, they lie in bed together, Sally’s head on Poseidon’s chest. His heart beats to a rhythm that’s deceptively human. The waves pound on the shores outside, in time with the  beats of Poseidon’s heart.

—

“I’m leaving tomorrow morning,” Sally says quietly, into Poseidon’s hair (he smells _good_ ), when they wake up.

“I know.” Poseidon stops what he’s doing (kissing her neck, and it felt _so good_ , and she squirms when the sensation disappears). “I was hoping—”

And that’s a tone that Sally knows means trouble, even though she’s never heard it before. She sits up, disregarding her near-nakedness. “What.”

“Come with me, Sally Jackson. Come with me to my palace under the sea and stay with me forever.”

His eyes are pools of green, and she’s mesmerized by them, by the low rumble of his voice. But.

 “You don’t mean that.”

“I do.” And the thing is, she believes him. She believes he’s deadly earnest, and in that moment she falls in love with him, and her heart breaks into a million little pieces.

“I have a job. A _life_.” Not a good job or a life with much to show for, but it’s her life, dammit. Her mortal life that she built with blood and sweat and tears. And this god, this man who’s in bed with her, he’s beautiful and amazing and everything she’s ever wanted. But—“I’m sorry. I can’t.”

Thunder rumbles outside, suddenly, and the sky opens into a cascade of rain. She doesn’t think about that. Can’t think about that, or about the way he gets up and walks to the window, his back a stern and forbidding line.

“Poseidon—”

“I love you, Sally Jackson. I loved you since the moment I saw you. And I can give you forever if you want to.”

Forever, Sally thinks. She knows he means it. Forever, stretching out before her. Forever, living as a god—a goddess she supposes. And all she can think is _loneliness_. She can’t even imagine what she would do as a goddess, and she doesn’t want to.

But. She doesn’t want to leave him either. She loves him, desperately and suddenly and it’s all so new. She doesn’t want to let go.

“Come visit me when I go home.”

It slips out unintentionally, but the moment she says it she knows what she wants. “I can’t give you what you’re asking of me. But—visit me? If you want.”

“Of course I want to,” Poseidon says. The thunder outside subsides, but it’s still raining. He’s still not looking at her.

She gets up and walks to him, puts her arms around him. “We can do this, okay? We _will_ do this. Please. Visit me.”

For a long moment, he stands stock still. Then, suddenly, he sighs. “Okay. I—okay. For you, okay.” He kisses her, gently, and it tastes like rain.

—

He visits her every weekend, and every month he takes her back to Montauk. (She doesn’t pay, and she hates it, hates not paying, but. Compromises. She’ll let him have that.)

It’s not the same. Of course it’s not the same. It’s not the bubble of bright laughter and amazing sights that their relationship started as, but it’s still everything she ever wanted. He’s everything she ever wanted, and she falls in love, more and more each time.

(He asks, once a month, in Montauk, whether she’ll come back with him to his kingdom. She always, always says no.

It becomes their strange little ritual, comforting in its own way.)

—

She takes him to her favorite places. The cotton-candy stand where Anne, the vendor, sometimes slips her a stick for half price, the park around the corner with the duck pond and the broken-down old swing set, the museums and art galleries she loves but can’t really afford to go to. Her grandmother’s gravestone, one quiet evening, to lay down flowers.

It’s nothing like anything he shows her. But he follows her around without complaint, and laughs with her, and takes her back to her apartment and makes love to her.

(Sometimes, she forgets he’s not human. That, she tells herself, is not a bad thing.)

—

Summer turns into fall, and she still works her job, still sees him on the weekends. He tells her about the pact he made with Zeus and Hades (and that’s still so strange to hear). She’s always been careful about protection, about condoms and pills, but now she’s even more so.

Still, they build a routine. When it becomes too cold to walk on the beach he just takes her down to the bottom of the sea itself. Not to the main palace, of course. But still his domain. Still his kingdom.

—

And then, in December, just after the first snow of the season, she misses her period.

She waits. And waits. And waits.

She waits three weeks before she buys a test. She buys five tests, never mind that she can’t afford them, and tries them all out.

They all come back positive.

 _So,_ she thinks, _this is it. This is the end._

(She thinks about getting rid of it, but she can’t. She wants a child, has always wanted a child. And now, she thinks that the only child she could ever have is his.)

—

She tells him. Of course she tells him. She tells him when they’re sitting in her tiny kitchen, sipping hot chocolate while it snows outside.

“Pregnant,” Poseidon says flatly. He’s strangely still for a moment. Then, “Sally, this time I’m begging you to say yes.”

She doesn’t have to ask what the question is. But she can’t. She could never, and this doesn’t change anything. “No. I’m sorry.”

“And you won’t—”

“No.” She shakes her head again. She’s already made up her mind. Made up her mind months ago, really.

“You know what this means,” he says quietly.

And yes, yes she does. She knows. But this is the only choice she can make. “Yes, I do.” Then, because she’s never been a quitter, she kisses him. She pours all her love into that kiss, and he responds in kind.

When she wakes up the next morning, the bed next to her is empty. She blinks the tears out of her eyes, gets up, and goes to work.

—

(She gives birth to a son in August the next year. She’s alone when he’s born, no-one at the hospital with her, no-one to comment on the name she gives him. _Perseus_.

She takes him to Montauk as soon as she’s discharged from the hospital. She’s not hoping for anything. It just feels right.

One evening, though, when she’s cooking in the cabin’s tiny kitchen, she thinks she hears a voice from the bedroom, where she’s laid little Percy down for a nap. When she runs in, the room is empty. But Percy is awake, and the ocean-breeze is wafting through the room.

And maybe it’s just that the wind changes direction in that moment, but she swears the smell of salt is suddenly stronger.)


End file.
